A 10-year-old boy attending a Japanese school in southern China has died after being stabbed on his way to class on Wednesday, according to Tokyo’s foreign minister, in the second knife attack near a Japanese school in the country in recent months.
The boy was attacked by a man about 200 meters (650 feet) from the gates of the Japanese school in Shenzhen, a tech-hub metropolis home to many Japanese businesses, according to China’s foreign ministry.
A 44-year-old suspect was apprehended at the scene and taken into custody, police in the city said in a statement.
Japanese and Chinese authorities did not specify the nationality of the victim. But Japanese nationality is required for enrollment at the Shenzhen Japanese School, according to its website.
“The fact that such a despicable act was committed against a child on his way to school is truly regrettable,” Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa told reporters Thursday.
“We take this incident extremely seriously, and we have once again requested that the Chinese side ensure the safety of Japanese nationals.”
The attack took place on a sensitive date, the anniversary of the “918” incident in 1931, when Japanese soldiers blew up a Japanese-owned railway in northeast China in a pretext to capture the region.
The emotionally charged day is commemorated in China as the start of Japan’s invasion, with state media and officials urging the public to never forget the national humiliation.
Chinese authorities did not mention the motive for Wednesday’s attack. But nationalism, xenophobia and anti-Japanese sentiment are on the rise in the country, often fanned by state media.
In June, a Chinese man wounded a Japanese woman and her child in a stabbing attack in front of a school bus in Suzhou, eastern China. A Chinese bus attendant who tried to intervene later died of her injuries.
Following that attack, Japan’s foreign ministry told Japanese schools to review their safety measures, Kamikawa said.
Ahead of the 918 anniversary, “we had just made a request to the Chinese foreign ministry to take thorough measures to ensure the safety of Japanese schools, so we are extremely disappointed that this incident occurred in this situation,” she added.
At a regular news conference Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said the case was being investigated.
“China will continue to take effective measures to protect the safety of all foreigners in China,” he added.
Public attacks against foreigners had been rare in China, but a series of high-profile stabbings have raised concerns in recent months.
Two weeks before the Japanese mother and child were attacked in Suzhou, four American college instructors were stabbed by a Chinese man at a public park in Jilin in the northeast, after he bumped into one of them, according to Chinese police.
China’s foreign ministry has described both attacks as isolated incidents and did not release further information on the motives.
